THE NIGHT RIDE
It was 1 AM and the streets lay largely empty. The black night held close making the stars shine all the brighter when my dad winded the car window down. Just then, wind rushed in boldly whooshing past my ears to touch my skin. I could feel my hairs on my arms raised and the bite of the wind left its mark in form of small bumps that were tingling on my arms. My blood ran cold through my veins and I tried rubbing my palms, but the heat did not seem to reach the skin.
“Where’s mine?” I asked mom when she pulled up two sweaters from her bag. She looked at me with a grin almost hinting me that I should have taken care of my belongings beforehand. She handed over one to dad and put the other one on. I did not want to apologize and was waiting for her hand to reach for another one. She glanced at me again- only this time with a satirical content.
“Lean closer” she said.
“What is it?” I shrugged rather blatantly.
“Just lean.” She shouted firmly this time. Mom has this annoying habit of being too tenacious.
Without hushing a word, I leaned forward only to feel her palm petting on my shoulder. I tilted back up when she grabbed my sweater to put it on me. I looked at her and gave her a smile.
“Thank you, Andrea” my eyes twinkled as I snatched the sweater from her. Soon enough I would eat my words. Occasionally, I would call her by her real name which she hated so much. I paused to hear storm back, but she seemed to be all different that day. I was eyeing suspiciously at her before our car bounced hard after hitting a speed bump.
“Brian, what was that?” she rolled her eyes at him.
“Sorry, I had no idea there was a speed bump”, my dad was trying to explain.
“Are you out of your mind? You know what could have happened there. “ mom continued yelling.
“Okay, I am really sorry,” dad was trying to apologize again. His eyes widened this time. It wouldn’t be difficult to guess that he was trying to shut my mom up. Mom felt clearly dazed before she turned speechless. But howsoever I see it, it feels like a tragedy to me when things start going upside down. I did not want to make this dark vision a reality. After about half a minute, I shook my head at the fuss it was trying to create in my brain. I wanted to tell my parents about this. I, instead, propped back trying to avoid the silence that had already settled in.
The cold wind was still swirling around my cheeks. I wrapped my arms tighter pulling my coat close and tucking my chin downward. My dad happened to pull the windows up as I laid down to sleep. The sky was still dark and low sporting a blackness that I would want to hug. As we drove closer to our home, I could see roads were quite empty- little traffic, just the occasional pedestrian along the way.
We took a right when we noticed a truck arriving at us in blinking lights. The truck was huge, and the lights were flickering intermittently interfering with our car’s headlights. My dad brought the car to a halt, but the lane was quite narrow for the truck to slide past our car. The truck, however, was rushing towards us. My dad started to panic. He, somehow, managed to glide the reverse gear on and balance the pull between accelerator and clutch. Finally, the car set out to slide backwards.
“Brian, speed up,” my mom was scowling. She was fiddling with her fingers and I could tell she was getting nervous.
“I am trying,” my dad yelled back in a perturbed tone. My mom, on the other hand, continued to fiddle and shout at the same time.
Meanwhile, I was just crossing my fingers and was constantly praying gripping my eyes tight until I heard a loud thump and juggled back and forth from my seat before I fell. I slowly unrolled my eyes and could hear the truck rambling behind us. My chest feared and gasped while my dad clutched in the key and started back home. I could feel my fingers shiver in sweat. I snapped at myself. I could see them feel at ease and slowly I let loose and felt the sweat dry off my fingers.
